Time to Stand Up

A silly little thing really, has sparked off this post. The Royal Mail smashed a bottle during delivery, offered six stamps as compensation and rigidly refused any other compensation. So what? Well the small man gets a raw deal. Nothing new in that, all down the ages the small man gets well trodden underfoot by all those over and above him. And yet, and yet times have changed. Ever since that woman with her narrow single-minded short-term focus ripped up our society, all prior presumptions have changed. 

Once the government was exemplar for truth, being correct, high standards, fairness and with a concern for the well-being of our Nation. Not any more. The focus and agenda has shifted as these former aspirations drift down the priorities and a new culture permeates the corridors. Performance, cost-effectiveness, media reaction, deniablity all take precedences to the old gold standards. When pride and public service was the watch word, the Royal Mail performance was held in high esteem. Not now, nobody cares and they shield themselves and their indifferent service behind reams of legal red tape. First class? Might be any time within three days but do not bother to query until three weeks have passed. Nobody cares. Yet the rigours of competition were supposed to put them on their toes, but where is the competition to deliver my letter to any where in the world? Right, the Royal Mail are in their death throes so it matters little in the end. But what does matter, is that a previous public service is allowed to lapse and drift into unacceptable levels of bad service and indifference. Not just the Royal Mail see also BT, electricity, gas, water, NHS, British Rail, household rubbish collection, parking wardens or any service to the public that used to be governed by civic pride and being answerable to the man in the street. Not any more. Commercial interests come first, user complaints are robustly refuted. The man in the street is held at a long arms length by legal parameters that were not drawn up with any intention that the common man could ever challenge their intrinsic inequality. The Common Law precept of a contract fairly entered into with equity of terms stood on its head, with the loser, the small man.

This is not just a rail against the commercialisation of public services. What I want to highlight is this drift, under the pretence of choice, commercial pressures, making 'providers' more accountable, these essential services, are actually becoming less answerable to the common man. This quasi 'commercial' element giving them a blanket of inaccessibility, beyond reproach, beyond the need to respond. They operate at a higher altitude able to ignore the real or imaginary complaints of all those people that have to use them and have no other choice. A real commercial operation has to listen to its users or they go elsewhere, there is real meaningful choice. Not with these services to the public. They are only the one providers we can goto, indifferent, passably bad, moderately reasonable, it matters not, we have to use them and acquiesce silently to all their failings, errors and consequential costs that might arise. Without recourse to any remedy. Yes, yes set up with a labyrinthine complaints procedure designed to protect the organisation from accepting fault, not to protecting the rights of the innocent victim of their failings.

I know the common man is prone to exaggeration, trying it on, going for those with big pockets with spurious legal claims but amongst all them are real victims suffering consequences, not of their making, and unable to get justice. Those not small people of course, like the ones that set up and operate these services for the public, are well placed, always have a contact that they can make to see their right answer comes out. Else they have the means to buy legal clout to ensure they get their just desserts. From their privileged view these organisations are answerable and responsive. Not in this two speed society for the small man.

Not just these services to public, but also the government organisations whose function it is to deal with the public. The old gold standards are gone, now it is fudge, obscuration, clear the desk quickly and on to the next, must meet the targets, never mind that problem resolution falls by the wayside. They is always a flip, glib answer that will see it gets buried and off the desk. Taking time to understand the nature of the concern, taking time to see what and how a problem might be answered are no long relevant. Information issued and released by the government is now no longer a model of factual correctness. It is now just a political tool to warp public opinion and win media support. A sad sick society that is not even able to answer honestly and transparently about itself. Wow, huge claims. For example, this really grates with me, some ten years ago the government stopped even trying to count the unemployed. The unemployed were redefined to be only those who complied with a state prescribed work search procedure and were therefore acceptable for signing on. Anyone else is disregarded and not counted. Served a political goal of the time but the (compliant) 'unemployed' are nothing like the best figure for the actually unemployed. Now the (compliant) 'unemployed' totals are taken as absolute, no question as to how many it leaves out. Word play with a hidden agenda. We the small man suffer and are denied usable mechanisms to seek relief.